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Wednesday, April 07, 2010

(Another) 1% well-read challenge - FAIL.

So, it's the end of the 1% well-read challenge, and I wasn't able to finish it successfully. I made a good effort though, with 10/13 books read. I'm pleased with that. There were others (Unless by Carol Shields to name just one) that I started and never finished though. The challenge is continuing for the third time and I'm contemplating signing up again. I do love how I write out a list of books I'd like to finish for the challenge and when it comes down to it I read almost none of them. So I guess I will be signing up again, after all there is still all those books that I'd still like to read! It's been fun reading these books though, I do love how the list widens my reading habits . My favourites from this year from the challenge? It'd be between A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry, Small Island by Andrea Levy and Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day by Winifred Watson.

How about you? Are you still reading books off of the 1001 Books To Read Before You Die list?

I don't do well with challenges. Last year I signed up for a few reading challenges but the only one I finished? The one challenge that I'd already taken up at a personal level. Reading books off of the 1001 Books to Read Before You Die list.

According to the ever useful spreadsheet HERE I'm at 117/1001 or 11.69% of the list complete. I need to read 16 of the books a year to finish the list before I die. Here's where the 3M's 1% well-read challenge comes in...

Last year, I finished these books. Plus at least four more (15 in total). This year, I'm hoping to read at least the same amount. Even possibly reading the required 16 titles for this year? Here are some books that I'm throwing around as possibilities, mostly because I own all of these books. Obviously subject to change.

1. Saturday by Ian McEwan2. On Beauty by Zadie Smith3. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell4. The Colour by Rose Tremain5. Unless by Carol Shields6. Atonement by Ian McEwan (started for the last 1% well-read challenge)7. The Body Artist by Don DeLillo8. The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood9. The Master of Petersburg by JM Coetzee10. Possession by AS Byatt11. Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres12. The Child in Time by Ian McEwan13. A Pale View of Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro14. Schindler's Ark by Thomas Keneally15. The Once and Future King by TH White16. Sometimes a Great Notion by Ken Kesey

Bah. I'll have to stop there. I know I own a lot of these books, but I can't bring myself to read my own books sometimes. I will not be surprised when I finish this challenge (because I will) that my completed list looks nothing like this. Instead it will be all the books that I can find in the library. We'll see how it goes.

EDITED TO ADD: I'm updating my progress on this same page. After a lot of humming and hawing, I've decided that I will no longer deny the existence of the Updated list of 1001 Books To Read Before You Die and have now taken that list on as well. I won't give up on the original list but I am also ticking off numbers for the new list as well.

Currently, I'm at 118/1001 of the original list and 96/1001 of the updated list.

Books Read for the 1% Well-Read Challenge:

1. The Cement Garden by Ian McEwan (original list)2. Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka (updated list)3. Small Island by Andrea Levy (updated list)4. Falling Man by Don DeLillo (updated list)5. A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry (original list)6. An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro (original list)7. Sexing the Cherry by Jeanette Winterson (original list)8. A Pale View of Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro (original list)9. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway10. Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day by Winifred Watson

Me Me Me

I've been running my book blog, Fluttering Butterflies, for the past (nearly) 9 years and have recently taken up booktubing on my own channel, cloveryness, as well as collaboratively with the Bookish Brits.